This publish was authored by Amy Lavine, Esq.
A New York appellate court docket docket held in 2021 {{that a}} Jewish day school and summer season camp did not qualify for preferential zoning remedy as a religious or tutorial use.
The petitioner, Sid Jacobson Jewish Group Center, owned property throughout the Village of Brookville in an R-5 zoning district. Together with detached single-family dwellings, the R-5 district moreover allowed diverse conditional makes use of, along with “nonresidential makes use of which is not going to be excluded pursuant to the state and federal authorized pointers.” The JCC operated a day school and camp on its property and in 2014 it utilized for a setting up enable to broaden its providers and widen the prevailing driveway to its property. The zoning board denied its software program, nonetheless, based on a willpower that the JCC’s use of the property was not a conditional use permitted throughout the R-5 district and that the proposed use will be detrimental to the neighborhood.
The court docket docket agreed with the zoning board that the JCC’s use of its property did not qualify as each a religious or tutorial use that is perhaps entitled to deferential zoning remedy. The court docket docket first outlined that regardless that “the JCC is a religious group, the proof supplied to the ZBA helps its willpower that the actions and purposes equipped on the Day Faculty and Camp are customary leisure actions that are equipped at any summer season camp.” The court docket docket equally found that the JCC’s use of the property was leisure, barely than academic in nature. As a result of it observed, “the proof throughout the doc established that the camp is operated beneath a children’s camp enable issued by the Nassau County Division of Nicely being, and the actions equipped are predominantly athletic and leisure in nature, eg, sports activities actions, swimming, horseback driving , and diving. Extra, no proof was supplied to point out that the employees employed by the camp are licensed to instruct in matters which can be part of an on a regular basis school curriculum.” The court docket docket moreover upheld the zoning board’s willpower that the JCC’s proposed use will be detrimental to the neighborhood. As a result of the court docket docket outlined, this discovering was supported by “explicit, detailed testimony” from adjoining property homeowners that was based on their “personal data,” and this it was not solely based on “subjective points resembling frequent group opposition.”
Matter of Sid Jacobson Jewish Group Ctr., Inc. v Zoning Bd. of Appeals of the Inc. villa. of Brookville, 192 AD3d 693 (NY App Div second Dept 3/3/21).